When furniture, such as cabinets, for example, have movable parts such as doors, those movable parts are often mounted to the furniture body using a movable member like a hinge. Examples of such hinges can be found, for instance, in Applicant's U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,604,956, 6,647,591, 6,996,877, and 7,117,561, the entireties of which are incorporated herein. U.S. Pat. No. 8,683,652 (hereinafter the '652 patent) also discloses a conventionally known hinge.
In these types of hinges, the base plate of the hinge is fixedly attached (mounted) to the body of the furniture piece, and the hinge cup is likewise fixedly attached to the movable part of the furniture piece, such as the door, and the two are hingeably connected to one another by a hinge arm that is adjustably fixed to the base plate so that the position of the door relative to the furniture body can be manipulated. For example, this adjustable fixation is typically accomplished using one or more adjustment members, such as a rotatable cam to control the depth direction or spacing between the door and the furniture, a height adjustment cam, and a side adjustment member to adjust the side position of the door relative to the furniture.
While the intended situation ideally involves providing controlled displacement between the hinge arm and the base plate over a predetermined range to manipulate the position of the door relative to the furniture, failure of the depth adjustment member can cause uncontrolled displacement, which, in turn, can cause the side adjustment member to become undesirably displaced, as well. In some circumstances, the hinge arm can become fully disassociated from the base plate, and the hinge itself, or even the entire door, can detach and fall off the furniture, which poses the danger of injury to people and objects nearby, and creates a furniture repair and/or replacement expense.
An attempt to prevent hinge arm disassociation was proposed by the locking mechanisms disclosed in '652 patent. While those locking mechanisms do not necessarily interfere with the normal operation of the adjustment member, the various embodiments instead pose different challenges. That is, one embodiment requires the provision of corresponding structural modifications to both the hinge arm and the base plate, and other embodiments require the provision of additional pieces, such as brackets or tensile-force resistant bands, as well as additional manufacturing steps and costs to implement those extra members.
In view of the above, it would be desirable to provide a hinge having a locking feature to prevent the disassociation of hinge components, but which does not require separate additional parts, complex structural modifications or expensive manufacturing steps, and which does not interfere with the normal operation of the depth adjustment member.